7 Ways to Make Your Baby to Sleep Tonight

Cole Gamble — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:00:00 GMT

For the first year and a half of his life, your little boy may have gone down with a bottle at a regular time every night. Oh how blessed those days were. But then one day a switch flipped in that slumbering angel and now the little man won’t sleep at all. It’s midnight and Johnny Wired is bounding through the house and yelling like he’s just realized his rushing for frat. By now, you’ve learned when baby don’t sleep, you don’t sleep. And when you don’t sleep, the earth stands still; zombies rise and walk the earth (and by zombies, we mean you). If you're going to survive you need to come up with a plan. You need to lay some strategery on that kid’s butt. Here are some tactics you can employ.

1) Wear them out during the day. Take them to the park. Run them hard.

2) Shorten or cut out the nap. Wait, you’re kid isn’t sleeping at night and you are still giving them a nap? Are you nuts?!

3) Stick to the rules. If you say “only one story and then bed,” it better only be one story. Or else you’ll spend countless hours every night bargaining.

4) Set up a consistent routine. For instance, do bath, teeth, story, bed. Do it the same way every night and they will learn to wind down with the routine.

5) Create a soothing environment. If you make your kid sleep on top of a running washing machine, now is the time to rethink that strategy.

6) Stay as close as he needs you to. Some children are happy to go to sleep after a quick goodnight kiss, while others prefer to snuggle, hold hands or go to sleep with an adult in a nearby chair. This will change as your child grows and becomes more self-confident, so don't worry ' you won't have to rock your teenager to sleep.

7) Let them know you’ll be there. Sometimes the root of the problem is nightmares or fear of the dark. Assure where you will be, install a nightlight and general remove the fear factor.

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Kids Must Sleep Or Pay The Price

Kelly Mills — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 12:32:00 GMT

This morning my kid wanted to come with me to my other job (teaching exercise bootcamps--it's basically the opposite of blogging) so I got her up at 5:30 a.m. and off we went. Of course last night she stayed up a little late so my sister could read her two chapters of her latest Lemony Snicket book. And I think the night before that we had family movie screening, so it was a late-ish bedtime. I mean, she has an approximate bedtime, but then there's stuff we wanna do, and when some family members get home late and want to spend some quality moments together, we flex it some, and our morning rising time isn't totally consistent... But what harm can all that do?

Turns out, a hell of a lot. I must tell you I read countless studies and articles on studies and parenting blah blah every day, but this piece from New York magazine is possibly the first to motivate me to dramatically change my priorities. Because there's a giant mountain of evidence that losing sleep for kids is tied to worse performance in school. And to poor impulse control. And depression. And obesity. All things I had heard before, but when you put it all together like this in such a disturbing and compelling argument, well, I'm sold. I only wish they included more info on how many hours of slumber kids at different ages need.

My big change? I get that a regular bedtime and rising time, as well as sufficient zzzz's, are crucial for kids on so many levels, and we need to elevate the importance of sleep in our daily routine. We have to make it a consistent routine. We have to up both the quality and the quantity, even if it means making tough choices, like giving up or cutting short an activity (with occasional exceptions, natch.) Part of the problem for us is that the adults in the house neglect our own sleep regularly in favor of work and entertainment and so on. And I think it's only fair we amend that one as well, because I do believe in leading by example. And I tend to get about six hours a night, which isn't enough.

And how do you help kids sleep? Well, you could, um, go pills or cage. Plan B: There's this nice rundown, also from NY mag. And I'll summarize some key points by saying: a regular bedtime in a cool room with no pre-bed television chillout. Naps alone won't cut it. And again: A. Regular. Bedtime. The faux drill sergeant side of me is already getting excited by the idea of a precise, orderly, and enforced routine.

Strollerderby : routine

7 Ways to Make Your Baby to Sleep Tonight

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Man locks daughters in cage while he works

Kids Must Sleep Or Pay The Price